Shakespeare: The Rome Quartet

Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Patrick Wymark, Anthony White, William Devlin, full cast

Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present Argo Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time.

All four of Shakespeare’s plays that are considered to form the Rome Quartet, performed by the celebrated Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players.

Power, tragedy and hubris are played out in this quartet, all of which are set in the febrile political atmosphere of ancient Rome. Performed by an incredible array of the 20th century’s greatest actors, Marlowe alumni including Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales, Patrick Wymark and William Devlin can be heard in these recordings.

All of the Shakespeare plays within the Argo Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations.

Thurston Dart, professor of music at London University and a fellow of Jesus College Cambridge, directed the music for this production.

This collection includes all four plays considered to form Shakespeare’s Rome Quartet:

• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Julius Caesar
• Titus Andronicus

The full casts for each production in this collection can be found in the description of the individual play’s product page.

Public Domain (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Not so Great

The storytelling is horrific. Most of the time I can't tell what's going on or who is talking.
This is not accurate history, it is a fictional story based on historical events.
The audiobook sounded like it was the audio recording of a play, which is can explain why you rarely hear the characters say who is whom or what setting is the events transpiring at.